


The Good Bruce Compilation

by DragonflyxParodies



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: AU Snippets, Alternate Universe, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, But he loves his kids, Canonical Character Death, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Gen, In Which Bruce Wayne Is A Good Parent, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, This is a happy fic!!, acts of love, nobody dies!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26277757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies/pseuds/DragonflyxParodies
Summary: There are two universal truths about Bruce Wayne. He cannot handle emotions. And he loves his children.Snippets of worlds in which these two truths manage to come out moderately healthily.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 10
Kudos: 184





	The Good Bruce Compilation

So, here’s the thing.

Bruce is so emotionally inept it is _comical_. He doesn’t emote, he doesn’t talk about his feelings, and he doesn’t tend to even acknowledge that he’s _feeling_ them.

He is also overbearing, possessive, obsessive, controlling, and has no sense of boundaries. Coupled with his near-crippling paranoia, it makes for a Hot Mess of biblical proportions.

Here’s the other thing; Bruce _loves_ his children. He adores them with every atom of his entire being, every ounce of his soul.

These are two fundamental truths to Bruce Wayne’s very being, and they manifest differently, vary spectacularly, in every version of him.

Bruce Wayne loves his children. Bruce Wayne doesn’t know how to say so.

X

Jason’s return is as bloody and violent and explosive as it ever is. It is catharsis; rage and pain and hurt and desperation, and the pivotal confrontation, the one that will decide the trajectory of the rest of their lives, ends with the Joker wheezing on cold cement before the ruins of his most recent prison and the Dark Knight spiriting his bleeding, dying, _wounded_ boy away.

Jason lives; Death has no interest in him. And Bruce refuses to let go of him.

Fourteen hours later, Jason wakes uncomfortable and stiff against his father’s chest. Bruce is, finally, unconscious. His mask is missing, and he looks so old and so worn and so sad that Jason can’t breathe for one very long moment. There are tear tracks on Bruce’s face, clean lines slicing through blood and ash and grime.

And even asleep, he’s holding onto Jason like he’s the only thing he has left.

X

Richard Grayson’s parents die in tribute to the Court of Owls. They fall as they always do, break their wings as they always do, and leave their child screaming for them even as claws and feathers spirit him away.

One Bruce Wayne watches, as he always does, and finds a kinship with the boy he has never known before.

Two weeks later, Bruce Wayne punches a butter knife through the Grand Master’s throat at an opulent dinner. Three weeks later, he is crowned the new Grand Master and every Talon bows before him.

Richard Grayson has been a Talon for six and a half weeks before Bruce Wayne finds him. His eyes are golden, and his little claws are wet red, and he does not make so much as a peep when he is hurt.

Bruce Wayne takes him home. He gives him a bed and a room and a family. He burns the rest of the Court down for him, slaughters the rest of the Talons for him. He purchases the zoo for him, ensures Gotham is a yearly stop on their route, and replaces those few fools willing to trade a child’s life for quick cash.

And once every other week, Bruce Wayne scoops little Richard Grayson up and carries him into a secret facility beneath his manor rather than the boy’s room. He lays him down in a glass coffin and whispers soft assurances as the boy shivers and tries to be brave. He pulls a lacework cage of needles glinting gold with serum over his boy.

Richard Grayson is a child; too young for the Talonization process to take root fully. He is not immortal, not yet. He won’t be safe until he is.

Bruce Wayne sits by his son’s side every night, and in the morning, takes him for ice cream.

X

When a tiny little mop of black hair and bright blue eyes clutching a camera to his breast insists _Batman needs Robin,_ one Bruce Wayne stops, and reflects.

The truth of the matter is that Batman does not need Robin. He does not need a crime-fighting partner, he does not need a lookout, he does not need a cheerleader.

He’s so much more violent now, he’s so much more reckless. _Suicidal_ , Selina tells him with gravestone eyes.

The truth is that Batman has nothing left to _protect_ , nothing to _fight for_.

He’s never needed a Robin. He’s needed his _children_.

It’s as unhealthy a decision as his other selves’, but Bruce tucks Tim Drake into the folds of his cape and does not let him loose on the streets. His behavior adjusts, calms. Dick Grayson returns ot the fold and Bruce thinks that Jason would maybe be proud of him.

He sets Tim in front of monitors and wires as a concession. He trains the boy to fight and to fight well, to protect himself. Teaches him to think like a detective, to think on his feet, to consider every angle.

And Bruce takes him to school. He shows up to Tim’s science fairs and robotics meets. He drives him to game nights and asks about his days, and remembers his birthdays and hosts movie nights.

And when Tim Drake’s parents come home in wooden boxes, he’s there to take the boy home.

X

When Cassandra Cain arrives in Gotham as desperate for safe harbor as she ever is, Batman himself is there to offer it to her.

She settles in; repels her father’s hunt and finds meaning in the cowl. And nearly a month after that business is laid to rest, Bruce Wayne watches her wrap a sprained wrist and slide her costume’s glove on atop it and thinks, _oh_.

He takes her to a garden. To an art fair. A zoo. An amusement park – though not, of course, one within Gotham’s city limits. He takes her to movies and to musicals, and then one night he takes her to a ballet and watches her whole body _light up._

She _shines_ as she watches the dancers move. Looks to him with awe and delight and tears in her eyes and he holds her while she sobs that night, as she finally understands what he’s been trying to show her.

She drops to a bi-weekly patrol schedule. She doesn’t give it up; he doesn’t really expect her to. She signs up for ballet classes. She convinces him to join her in a waltz class. Dick is delighted by her interest and the two of them join a pole-dancing class together. She watches videos and teaches herself other types of dance.

Cassandra learns what it is to be something _other_ than a soldier.

He has one of the old ballrooms outfitted to be a studio, for her birthday.

X

Damian Wayne comes to Gotham as he always does, expecting to find his father’s approval and desperate to obtain it. Those first few weeks are hard; he wakes early and trains and for lack of any other ideas, Bruce teaches him non-fatal combat. It is the only time they truly interact, though Damian is never far from Bruce’s shadow after their sessions have ended.

It is by chance that he finds the drawing, etched into the margins of a lab report and wrinkled beneath his son’s sleeping face.

He has Alfred pick up some supplies on his next grocery run. Gotham Academy, Bruce’s research tells him, has as strong an art program as a middle school ever could. For Damian’s birthday, he gives Damian and Dick tickets to the art museum.

Damian brings home his first stray. Without thinking about it, Bruce tells him _veterinary school is hard work,_ and the boy turns white as a ghost.

He already has a future, he tells his father. He will take over Gotham in his stead.

And Bruce dies, and returns, and finds his son has pushed those fancies into the shadows. He has friends, now. He is social, now. But he doesn’t draw in the margins anymore, and he flinches when strays nuzzle his hand on patrol.

_My father was a doctor_ , Bruce says one night. They are on patrol. Damian looks up at him sharply, curiously.

Bruce had not enjoyed medical school. Even beyond his obsession with what would eventually become the Batman. And every moment of every day, he tells his son, he felt like he was letting Thomas Wayne down. That he was letting _Alfred_ down.

_When’d it go away?_ Damian asks.

_When I got your brother,_ he replies.

Four days later he finds a sketch on his desk. Thomas Wayne smiles softly out at him. His eyes are gentle.

Bruce frames it, and keeps it on display on his desk.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of went with like  
> one single thing I think Bruce could've done w/all of his kids that would have astronomically bettered there relationships.   
> Except for Dick; this is just a Talon!AU headcanon I have and I wanted to write but I didn't want to write anything long or dark about it and this was like  
> yaay make it fluffy-ish.


End file.
